All publications cited herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application was specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Valvular heart disease is characterized by damage to or a defect in one of the four heart valves: the mitral, aortic, tricuspid or pulmonary. The mitral and tricuspid valves control the flow of blood between the atria and the ventricles (the upper and lower chambers of the heart). The pulmonary valve controls the blood flow from the heart to the lungs, and the aortic valve governs blood flow between the heart and the aorta, and thereby to the blood vessels in the rest of the body. The mitral and aortic valves are most frequently affected by valvular heart disease. Transcatheter valve therapies are one treatment option for patients. For example, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR—also known as TAVI or transcatheter aortic valve implantation) is a procedure for select patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis (narrowing of the aortic valve opening) who are not candidates for traditional open chest surgery or are high-risk operable candidates. This procedure wedges a replacement valve into the aortic valve's place without removing the old or damaged valve. A replacement valve is inserted percutaneously using a catheter and implanted in the orifice of the native aortic valve. Replacement valves may be artificial (prosthetic valves) or made from animal tissue (bioprosthetic valves). The type of replacement valve selected depends on the patient's age, condition, and the specific valve affected.
Certain minimum height or length (the longitudinal length along the flow axis of the valve) of the TAVR device is required to optimally orient the device in the aortic canal during deployment of a TAVR device. The longer the TAVR device, the easier it is to position in the canal of the aortic valve. However, the longer the TAVR device, the more metal that remains within the body, which may cause additional complications and reactions including thrombus formation. To solve these technical issues pertaining to the TAVR procedure, the inventors developed modular transcatheter valve replacement devices. In some embodiments, the modular transcatheter valve comprises a top (aortic aspect) module and a bottom (ventricular aspect) module. The bottom module is a small replacement valve (prosthetic or bioprosthetic) that sits in a patient's heart permanently to replace a diseased valve. The top module is a temporary component that increases the length of the bottom module for easy handling and optimal positioning. The top module may be mechanically detachable, electrically detachable, or bio-absorbable. The modular design maximizes ease of device positioning and minimizes the hardware left behind in the body of the subject.